Category Archives: Uncategorized

The last selection in our series on humankind and the nature world is Bringing Nature Home by Douglas H. Tallamy. This is a fantastic guide for anyone with a lawn or garden, to restore the lost biodiversity from many decades of popular landscaping choices. The book is well organized and readable, with plenty of anecdotes and examples.

This month’s book talk falls in the midst of our stay-at-home order, so if you’ve read the book, let’s talk it up, and if you would like to bring 3 other books to recommend for summer reading, please do.

Food for Thought book discussion Wednesday, May 13 from 6:00-7:00 via Zoom. To make a reservation, please send a note to info@LitYoungstown.org.

Next year’s series will be books written by Black authors. For your pandemic reading pleasure!

September (fiction) The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
October (fiction) The Water Dancer by Ta Nehisi Coates
November (poetry) Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
December Any children’s book
January (short stories) The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
February (fiction) The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
March (fiction) We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
April (speculative fiction) Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
May (fiction) An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Each summer, we raffle a large piece of art and split the purse with the artist. Thanks so very much to Youngstown sculptor Tony Armeni for collaborating with us on this gorgeous piece. Word is, with an Armeni in your back yard, the birds show up in top hats.

Your donation helps us fund our programs, and we’re so grateful. Good luck! If you win, we’ll come and take a picture. We will draw the winning ticket July 8 at the YSU Summer Festival of the Arts.

JT: #OccupiedWarren is a 2-day temporary art exhibit in Warren’s Garden District, June 8 (5-7pm) and June 9 (12-5pm). The project is hosted by Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership (TNP) and the Fine Arts Council of Trumbull County (FACT). What’s really interesting about this exhibit is that the art is themed around blight, abandonment, and revitalization, and it’s being displayed in an abandoned, non-salvageable house that will be demolished in the future along with any of the art created on the walls or within the rooms.

So some of the art will be transient, some will probably be removed. The timing of this event also coincides with the Warren Art Hop which is happening on Saturday, June 9, so Warren will be alive with art this weekend!

What kind of art will be at the event? Paintings, sculptures, a mix of everything?

Yes! The artists are free to choose whatever medium they want. Some of the art will be painted on the walls. Other pieces will be sculpted into and out of the walls. Other pieces are free standing. My work focuses on mixed media art journaling, which I’m creating on sketchbook paper and on some of the ceiling tiles from the house. The exhibit is really going to be quite diverse, interesting, eclectic, and exciting.

Will the art reflect on life in the Warren area, or is there a broader range?

I believe the art will reflect what’s happening in Warren, but by extension the Rust Belt area which includes the Mahoning Valley. The topics of blight, population loss, industry and job loss, and how we transition from what we once knew into what we might become as a culture and society are universal themes. The project is also modeled to some extent on the highly successful Rooms to Let: CLE produced by the Slavic Village Community Development Corporation. What’s unique about #occupiedwarren is that there is a theme of blight to revitalization.

I remember you said the house has been long abandoned; is there a history behind that house?

I don’t know the history of the home, other than at some point, it was remodeled into apartments, so there’s a kitchen on the second floor. From some of the papers organizer James Shuttic salvaged from the house (and I’ll use in my work), it’s evident that people who lived there paid bills, read newspapers, wrapped children’s birthday gifts, liked Currier and Ives calendars. Pretty normal everyday people living their lives like everyone else.

What is something you want the event to express to those who visit?

While I can’t speak for what other artists are doing because it’s going to be a surprise when we all see how each of us has interpreted the house and the theme, I want the event to express hope. That despite really trying times for our area, we as a community are in the process of a transition, moving from what we once were into what is now emerging. And the arts and small businesses are helping to create this new renaissance for Warren.

Here they are, the big, beautiful lineup of visiting and local writers who will make up our year’s series. We thank them most sincerely, as well as the Nathalie & James Andrews Foundation, the Soap Gallery, the open mic emcees and readers.

All readings take place at The Soap Gallery, 117. S. Champion St. Free street parking/in the lot at Champion & Front Streets. Doors open at 7:15, after the lights come on (please don’t disturb the yoga class); reading begins at 7:30. Open mic readers are invited to read for 5 minutes.

January 3 : Sarah Minor & Krysia Orlowski
Open mic emcee Sarah Lowry

Sarah Minor is the author of The Persistence of The Bonyleg: Annotated from Essay Press (2015). She’s an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art and the video editor at TriQuarterly Review. Her recent work appears in Diagram, Creative Nonfiction, and The Atlantic.

Krysia Orlowski lives and writes in Cleveland, Ohio. Her poems have appeared in Barn Owl Review, Dressing Room Journal, Helen, jubilat, and RealPoetik. Krysia is the author of the play Jan and the Trickster (Talespinner Children’s Theater, 2018.) She teaches at Cleveland State University and is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

Stacy Graber is an assistant professor of English at Youngstown State University. Her research interests include popular culture, pedagogy, critical theory, and semiotics. Her work has appeared in The ALAN Review, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Gravel Literary Magazine, Hamilton Stone Review, Storm Cellar, Modern Times Magazine, and YA Wednesday.

March 7: Adam Hughes & Stephanie Sesic
Open mic emcee Liz Skeels

Adam Hughes is the author of four full-length collections, most recently Allow the Stars to Catch Me When I Rise (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and Deep Cries Out to Deep (Aldrich Press, 2017). He resides in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

Stephanie Sesic teaches writing and literature at Kent State University and Cuyahoga Community College. Her work has appeared most recently online in Rascal. Her chapbook, The Intimate Verge, was published by Pudding House Publications in 2008. Her work reveals an obsession with the sky and tends to stick to the classic themes of sex and death.

Jennifer Jackson Berry is the author of The Feeder (YesYes Books, 2016), as well as the chapbook When I Was a Girl (Sundress Publications). She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Heather Dobbins is a native of Memphis, Tennessee. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Bennington College. Her poems and poetry reviews have been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Pacific Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology (Tennessee), The Rumpus, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and TriQuarterly Review, among others. She has been an instructor for nearly twenty years in Oakland, California; Memphis, Tennessee; and now in Fort Smith, Arkansas, yet another river town.

Christian Anton Gerard’s the author of Holdfast (C&R Press, 2017) and Wilmot Here, Collect For Stella (WordTech, 2014). He’s received Pushcart Prize nominations, a Best of the Net nomination, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarships among other awards. He teaches at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.

May 2: Lori Bodkin & Stacey Schneider
Open mic emcee Jennifer Kuczek

Lori Bodkin is a freelance writer and the Continuous Improvement Coordinator for Fyda Freightliner’s Pittsburgh and Youngtown locations. She is an accountant by degree, but her creativity eventually won out and Lori started her own customer service consulting business and has also facilitated several leadership workshops. She published a women’s non-fiction book, had a featured column in a North Carolina parenting magazine and writes for her own blog.

Stacey Schneider is a freelance writer and editor, as well as a professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, Ohio. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree and practiced as a pharmacist for many years but teaching and writing emerged as her true life calling. She has published a book in women’s non-fiction, edited a book on communication skills for women and contributed to several books for the medical professional.

June 6: Melissa Barger & William Heath
Open mic emceed by Amanda Miller

Melissa Barger has been writing for half her life. She is employed with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County and is revising a Young Adult Historical Fiction novel set in Youngstown during the summer of 1863.

William Heath was born in Youngstown and grew up in Poland. He is the national-award-winning author of novels: The Children Bob Moses Led, Blacksnake’s Path, Devil Dancer; poetry: The Walking Man; history: William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest; and interviews: Conversations with Robert Stone. He will be reading some recent poems set in the Steel Valley.

July 11: Storytelling NightNo open mic this month.

Join us for a night of community storytellers and desserts. Stories by Tom Beck, Arthur Byrd, Becky Ann Rosen Harker, Skye Hildebrand-Grapentine, Sue Hukari, Andrea Wells.
No open mic this month.

An Appalachian, Kari Gunter-Seymour blames her method of writing on the rich Ohio soil, her wildly eclectic family and neighbors and her upbringing. Her poems can be found in many fine journals and publications including Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and The LA Times. She is an Instructor in the School of Journalism at Ohio University and is the Poet Laureate for Athens, Ohio.

Sherri Saines is a librarian, mother, eighteenth-century reenactor, dancer and poet. She has been reading, writing, memorizing, and performing poetry since her grandmother gave her A Golden Book of Poetry for her 6th birthday. She has been published in Pig Iron, Allegheny Magazine, Mothering Magazine, Muse, Clover, Penguin Review and other small press publications. Her poems have been anthologized in The Ides of March (2012) and Everything Stops and Listens. Her husband, Steve, is her best critic and greatest support.

Kathleen Strafford holds an MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University. Originally from Ohio, Kathleen

moved to Leeds in 1998 and now is chief editor of Runcible Spoon Webzine. She has been widely published in anthologies and webzines, and is working on her second collection called Women Changed Everything. Her debut poetry collection was published in 2018 called Her Own Language.

September 5: World Poetry NightOpen mic participants are welcome to bring poetry in translation.

Dragana Crnjak & Karen Schubert will moderate a reading of international poetry.

October 3: Kathleen McGookey & Rikki Santer
Open mic Chris Gibowicz

Kathleen McGookey has published three books of poems, most recently Heart in a Jar. Her work has appeared in journals including Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West. She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.

Rikki Santer is an award-winning poet living in Columbus, Ohio. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Margie, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream and The Main Street Rag. Her fifth collection, Make Me That Happy, was recently published by NightBallet Press.

Barbara Sabol’s debut book, Solitary Spin, was published in 2017. She won the Mary Jean Irion Poetry Prize in 2014. Barbara reviews poetry books in the blog, Poetry Matters. She lives and works in Akron, Ohio.

December 5: Mike Geither NEOMFA Reunion ReadingOpen mic

Join us for a staged reading of Heirloom by Mike Geither. Open mic to follow. Special invitation to NEOMFA alumni, students and faculty.

Heirloom considers the effects of incest and violence across four generations of a Cleveland family. It considers the commonalities between family dysfunction and the genocide of Native Americans carried out by the US government in a search to bring dignity and awareness to their victims.

Mike Geither is a playwright and solo performer whose works have been staged in San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, New York and London. He is a four-time Ohio Arts Council fellow and is currently a Professor of English at Cleveland State University where he teaches in the Northeast Ohio MFA in creative writing.

Wednesday, January 3, join us for a reading by award-winning writers Sarah Minor & Krysia Orlowski. Open mic to follow, emceed by Sarah Lowry.

The Soap Gallery, 117 S. Champion St. Doors open at 7:15, reading begins at 7:30.

Sarah Minor is the author of The Persistence of The Bonyleg: Annotated from Essay Press (2015). She’s an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art and the video editor at TriQuarterly Review. Her recent work appears in Diagram, Creative Nonfiction, and The Atlantic.

Krysia Orlowski lives and writes in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in Barn Owl Review, Dressing Room Journal, Helen, jubilat, and RealPoetik. She teaches at Cleveland State University and is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

Thank You!

We are pretty excited about our first Winter Writing Camp,Saturday, February 24, 2017,10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Public Library of Youngstown & the Mahoning Valley and st. John’s Episcopal Church.

We’ll enjoy cool warm-up activities for writers and readers of all ages and experience levels. The day is free with registration, and includes sessions for children, teens, adults, and child-adult pairs. Children under 12 are required to have an adult in attendance. Free registration includes lunch and child care for children under 5.

*Registration is now closed. Thank you for such an enthusiastic response!*

Please join us in thanking our community partners The Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County and St. John’s Episcopal Church.

LIT YOUNGSTOWN WINTER WRITING CAMP ITINERARYSessions will take place at the Public Library of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley & St. John’s Episcopal Church

Session 1 10:00 to 10:45

Option A: Adult Beginner Poetry/Anne Garwig
Adults

This workshop will cater specifically to folks who are true beginners at writing poetry. If you’ve always admired poetry and yearned for the ability to express yourself in verse, this is a great place to start. Or maybe you dabbled when you were younger, but have been away from the art form for some time. We will explore some of the basic traditional techniques and forms, and we will discuss written works of poetry from contemporary authors as well as classic favorites like Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath.

Children’s books are fun! Join us for a brief discussion of the importance of reading for children and parents followed by a discussion of tips and strategies for finding fun and interesting books at the public library, along with examples of some wonderful books.

Option C: The Nuts and Bolts of Character Development /Melissa Guthrie
High School Through Adult

In this workshop, we will take an unexpected approach to character development. We will ask hard-hitting questions about our characters… like what their most treasured grudge is, and how they react to conflict. This immersion approach will give everyone the “tools” to create fully fleshed out characters and for worlds they inhabit.

Learn techniques to help write stories at this creative writing session geared towards upper elementary to middle school students. We’ll cover great beginnings, fleshing out your characters, how to keep a story’s plot going somewhere, and what it means to ‘show, don’t tell.’

Session 2 11:00-11:45

Option A: Let’s Get Personal /Kris Harrington
High School Through Adult

This workshop will focus on creating personal non-fiction writing that both tells a story and speaks to a larger theme. Participants will read and hear samples of personal writing from The Sun and The Moth, and then we’ll get to work on creating short personal, theme-based pieces.

Option B: Being Seen: Attracting Your Ideal Readers/Stacey Schneider
High School Through Adult

This interactive workshop will help you learn how to attract your ideal readers and apply a funnel approach to create your brand. Participants will learn how to lead with who they are and what they stand for in order to expedite the growth of their platform.

Option C: Writing Together /Ginny Taylor
Adult and Middle School

Writing is often a solitary endeavor. But what might happen if we teamed up with someone else? Come discover fun and creativity in this collaborative writing workshop designed for middle-schoolers and adults. Together, you’ll write poems, a story, and creatively journal. If you’re a parent or an adult with a special middle-schooled age person in your life, this workshop is perfect for both of you. All supplies included.

Parent and child become an authoring team in this fun workshop for children ages 4 to 10. How do creativity and experience work together in the writing process? You will see it in action here! If possible, each child should bring a parent to keep a one-on-one environment.

Pasta Bar & Open Mic 12:00-1:00Session 3 1:15-2:00

Option A: There’s an App For That!/Robin Wesson
High school through adult

There are so many writing platforms for sharing your work that it can be challenging to find them all. We will explore several, including WordPress, Facebook and Amazon Kindle.

Option B:Flash Fiction, Prose Poetry, and Other Cross-Pollinations: An Exploration of Hybrid Forms/William R. Soldan
High School Through Adult

Hybrid forms aren’t new by any means, yet their malleability encourages us to push against boundaries in ways traditional forms don’t. Here, we’ll discuss various “cross-genres,” study some examples, and experiment, so you’ll leave class creatively stimulated, with a broader sense of the potential for hybridity in your own writing.

Writers at any stage who have a novel in mind, or a novel already begun, will benefit from this workshop. We’ll look at strategies for developing a novel, as well as tips for getting a draft written.

Option D: Children Writing/Nicole RobinsonElementary School

In this writing session for children participants will read and write poems through a variety of playful approaches. Exploring sound, metaphor, and rhythm, each child will leave with at least one completed poem, and a page of ideas for future writing.

Session 4 2:15-3:15

Embark on an exciting writing journey through space and time! Using your imagination, assorted words and writing prompts, write about someplace you’ve been, never been but want to visit, or a magical or imaginary realm. You can write in prose or poetry.

Session B: Writing Children’s Literature/Nikki Ericksen
High School Through Adult

This workshop will be an introduction to Children’s Literature. This class is perfect for beginning and experienced writers, readers, and listeners, alike. Participants will learn about the different categories within Children’s Literature and discuss the target audience and age for each. Current and classic works will be used.

Session C: Writing on Illness/Tom Pugh
High School Through Adult

Tom will be conducting a session on writing illness from a nonfiction perspective. Maybe your experience with illness was tragic and brings you to the verge of tears, maybe your experience with hospitals and doctors is hilarious. Come to this session to put it into words with Tom!

Option B: Writing a Poem in Five Images/Terry Murcko
Middle school through adult

Starting From the Hands: A make it / share it / take it exercise that shows how a poem can condense narrative, characterization, and dialogue to tell a whole story in one swift scene, all from the imagery in five quick pictures captured in five lines.

3:30 Cookies & Metaphors

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Meet the Workshop Leaders:

Mari Alschuler earned an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. Her poems and short stories have been published in national journals and anthologies. She is an Associate Professor of social work at YSU and is a poetry therapy practitioner and psychotherapist in Poland.

Rebecca Barnhouse, the author of three novels, teaches literature and fiction writing at YSU.

Terry Benton teaches children’s literature at Youngstown State University. She holds degrees in Education, English, and Curriculum and Instruction.

Nikki Ericksen has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and a BA in Professional Writing and Editing from Youngstown State University. She is working on a middle grade novel inspired by her family’s military experience.

Anne Garwig is a poet and an English instructor at Kent State University’s Salem campus. She earned her BA in English from Ohio State University and her MFA in poetry from the NEOMFA consortium. Her work has appeared in various journals and magazines, including The Literateur,Into the Void, and Broad!. She has been an associate artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and was selected for the 2017 Poetry Foundation Summer Teachers Institute. Anne is a native of Youngstown where she lives with her husband and their five pets.
Allison Graf works as a youth services librarian for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. Her degrees in Sports Management, Creative Writing, and Library Science might appear to make her seem worldly and interesting, but she’s not; she’s a crazy cat lady and proud of it.

Melissa Guthrie has been writing for half her life. She is the coordinator for an online 1st 5 Pages writing workshop. She is employed with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County and is revising a Young Adult Historical Fiction novel set in Youngstown during the summer of 1863.

Kris Harrington’s creative non-fiction has been published in Jenny and The Sun, and she’s also performed her work at local art festivals and story telling events. Kris teaches college-level writing for Kent State University and she coordinates and directs The Strand Project, a monologue-based theatrical production. She lives in Youngstown, Ohio with her husband Jim, daughters Miranda and Gillian and a menagerie of rescue pets.

Terry Murcko has written poetry and songs since 1967. He has taught Creative Writing (on and off) for forty years, and has been affiliated with the National Writing Project. His most recent publication is in River of Words (Wick Poetry Center, 2017). He also hangs out with his grand-daughter, Maddie.

Tom Pugh is a graduate of Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts. He writes creative nonfiction and focuses primarily on life events, which have often been humorous. As of late, he has been working on a humorous cancer memoir about his stay in Cleveland Clinic in 2016. He has been published in Youngstown State University’s Jenny and Akron University’s Rubbertop Review.

Nicole Robinson’s poems have appeared in Artful Dodge, Great River Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and elsewhere. She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for her poetry in 2016, and is currently a writer-in-residence at Akron Children’s Hospital where she leads creative writing workshops for patients, families, and staff.

Stacey Schneider is a freelance writer and editor, as well as a professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, Ohio. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree and practiced as a pharmacist for many years but teaching and writing emerged as her true life calling. She has published a book in women’s non-fiction, edited a book on communication skills for women and contributed to several books for the medical professional.

William R. Soldan holds a BA in English Literature from YSU and is a graduate of the NEOMFA program. His writing appears or is forthcoming in publications such as New World Writing, Jellyfish Review, Kentucky Review, Thuglit, The Literary Hatchet, (b)OINK, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, and many others.

A self-proclaimed journaling activist, Ginny Taylor is a certified Journal to the Self instructor. Her writing background includes an MFA in creative writing from Ashland University, multiple publications, and teaching in college-level writing programs. Through her business called Women of Wonder, Ginny facilitates workshops where she channels her passion for empowering women through difficult life transitions and towards a new beginning.

Robin Wesson was born and raised in Youngstown. She is not sure what a “Youngstown girl” is but is proud to say she is from the city. She has traveled to many places but nothing makes her happier than seeing a Youngstown highway sign.

In Closing the Food Gap, food activist and journalist Mark Winne poses questions too often overlooked in our current conversations around food: What about those people who are not financially able to make conscientious choices about where and how to get food? And in a time of rising rates of both diabetes and obesity, what can we do to make healthier foods available for everyone?

… Using anecdotal evidence and a smart look at both local and national policies, Winne offers a realistic vision for getting locally produced, healthy food onto everyone’s table.

Haven’t read the book yet? No worries. Come join us. 5:00-6:00, Thurs. April 13 at Cultivate Co-op Cafe, 901 Elm St. (No potluck: the cafe will be open and serving.)